How rescue joeys stole the show in new feel-good family film

Margot, Emily, Connor and their on-set snugglemate Biscuit are the furry little scene-stealers in the new Australian film Kangaroo.

Set in the outback, deep in the red dust under endless blue skies, the heartwarming story of caring, community and irresistibly cute baby kangaroos leaps onto cinema screens on September 18.

More than a movie, Kangaroo is a love letter to the landscapes, wildlife and ancient and modern spirit of Australia. Inspired by the real-life heroics of a dedicated kangaroo rescuer, and brought to life by a star-studded cast, the feel-good family fable and its adorable marsupial stars are set to capture the hearts of moviegoers around the world.

Chris "Brolga" Barns, founder of the Alice Springs Kangaroo Sanctuary, whose escapades raising orphaned roos inspired the film, says the journey to the big screen for the film's four featured joeys began with tragedy on a lonely outback highway and ended with a return to the wild.

"They were rescued from roadkill out on the highway, and were being raised by us as their foster mothers," he said of his sanctuary program run with wife Tahnee.

Nicknamed "Brolga" for his lanky frame, Barns wrangled the animals on the set of the movie near Alice Springs, where they had their own trailer and were bottlefed every three hours.

"They're just the cutest animals in the world," he said. "I've looked after animals a lot of my adult life at zoos and wildlife parks and the joeys are always the cutest."

The first Australian film from StudioCanal, the French screen giant behind the beloved Paddington movie franchise, the PG-rated Kangaroo is directed by Kate Woods, of Looking for Alibrandi acclaim.

It builds a fictional story around the roo-rescuing exploits of Barns featured in the 2013 BBC-National Geographic documentary series Kangaroo Dundee.

Ryan Corr leads the cast as self-absorbed TV weatherman Chris Masterman who is unexpectedly stranded in a tiny Northern Territory town where 12-year-old Charlie, an Indigenous girl adrift after the death of her father, shows him how to care for an orphaned kangaroo joey.

It's a sunny, heartfelt, sometimes quirky blend of old-fashioned TV favourite Skippy The Bush Kangaroo and dinkum movie hit Red Dog, as a wayward adult, a grieving girl and a tiny orphaned roo help each find their "mob".

Corr is best known for TV shows like Packed to the Rafters and, more recently, Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon, as well as such films as Bruce Beresford's Ladies in Black, Russell Crowe's The Water Diviner and Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge.

How did the accomplished actor feel about cute critters upstaging him with their antics?

"I know, right, and they had better contracts too," he laughed. "They had to have a two-hour break between every four hours of work, which we didn't have! And their writers were exceptional."

Together with his young co-star Lily Whiteley, who plays Charlie, Corr spent time before filming doing the same joey handling training as the sanctuary's volunteer carers.

"When we went in there, it was just washing baskets full of baby joeys, and new ones coming in each day," Corr said. "Tahnee and Chris are just so dedicated to the care and nurturing of these animals. It was a pretty inspiring environment to be in."

The actors learned how to interact with the animals.

"It was really important that we didn't overly coddle them, because obviously, eventually, they are to be released," he explained. "We did things like toilet train them as well as bottle feed them ... developing a bond so they would follow us around. We had moments where you'd go to the toilet and you'd have two little joeys following you down the corridor. But it was a really fine balance of respecting the fact that these baby joeys are going to be rehabilitated and put back out into the wild."

While filming with the joeys was often a case of "just hope for the best", sometimes with little Margot "it was almost like she'd read the script," Corr said. "She'd come up and she'd scratch herself or she'd do something ridiculously cute and you could hear the whole film crew at that moment go 'naawwww'. We knew we were capturing magic."

Roo rescuer Barns said wrangling the joeys during filming had its moments: "If there was a script that we had to follow, and things I wanted the joeys to do, a lot of the time the joeys wouldn't do it. But then they'd do something totally unexpected that was way cuter and we'd go 'wow'. Joeys are like that. When you walk around the house, all the joeys follow you around. When we walk down the hallway, we might have 10 joeys following us like they are following their mother. That's just instinct. In a movie like this, when that was needed, to them it was just instinct to follow the actors around".

Even before movie-goers get to see them bouncing across the cinema screen, the four main kangaroos have already been released into the wild.

"They've all gone back to the bush," Barns said. "That's what we do. It generally takes about a year from when we get them in, to when they are released. I'm happy to say that all the kangaroo joeys in the film are now adolescents and running around the outback near Alice Springs. Even though they were stars for a while, they're now wild kangaroos back out in the bush."

Corr sees fitting symmetry in his character's journey through the film to "find his purpose, find his mob".

"At its core, this film is about animal welfare and rehabilitation, but it's also about community and family and finding the people that make life worth living," he said. "So, it's a wonderful, full-circle irony that, at the end of making Kangaroo, we get to release these roos back into their world."

While the joeys are all real, one famous, and rather formidable, full-grown kangaroo in the movie gets the visual effects treatment.

Roger, the sanctuary's alpha male, became a viral sensation on social media for his incredibly muscular physique and aggressive behaviour towards Barns, who says the digital version of his former sparring partner does justice to the big red boomer's physique and personality.

"Roger was a big dude," he said. "I'm 6' 7", so he and I used to look each other in the eye. And, yes, he was a dangerous kangaroo. I had to run for my life whenever he was around and make sure I didn't get kickboxed.

"A few times I did come off second best. In the film, we see Roger in all his glory. Roger passed in 2018 and what they have created is lifelike. The world loves Roger, so I think they'll love him in this."

The marsupials are the stars of the show, but some of Australia's best-loved and most seasoned First Nations screen storytellers, including Deborah Mailman, Ernie Dingo, Wayne Blair and Trisha Morton-Thomas, also shine, bringing wit, warmth and wisdom as the quirky residents of fictional Silver Gum.

Corr described his human co-stars, who also include Brooke Satchwell and Roy Billing, as "an ensemble with energy".

Newcomer Lily Whiteley, chosen from more than 300 hopefuls to make her acting debut as Charlie, was a revelation, he said.

Having started acting at an early age too, did he have any wise advice for Whiteley?

"I don't know about wise advice," he laughed. "I think Lily had some advice for me. Lily spent a lot of the time trying to convert me into a Taylor Swift fan. I think she eventually got there. And she'd also love taking photos at lunchtime under the lunch table, trying to get you to have a double chin. She thought that was absolutely hilarious.

"I can't say enough about young Lily Whiteley. She's so incredibly talented. She's also annoyingly humble. She was an Olympic-level athlete when we met her. I started about her age but she's already an incredible dancer, singer and, of course, now she's done her first feature film. She's just a starlet in the making."

Kangaroo comes with a ready-made global audience thanks to the Kangaroo Dundee series, which was seen in more than 90 countries.

Even so, helping to make a movie inspired by his life's work was surreal for Barns: "The whole thing was like that. I've been a kangaroo rescuer for 20 years ... driving up and down the lonely highways of the outback checking roadkill, and I would never have thought that anything like that way of life would come to the big screen and be shown all around the world.

"I've done documentaries with the BBC and Nat Geo where we always had a small crew of three or four people. And then on the film set each day, there were 120 to 150 people and big cameras and tripods. It was very much like being in Hollywood every day and, for us, that was a 'pinch yourself' moment."

While the film feels like it's been purpose-built to woo the rest of the planet "down under" to bottlefeed baby marsupials in the outback, Corr reckons it's first and foremost for Aussie kids.

"I think for kids growing up here, it's vital to our culture that you're seeing Australian humour, Australian places, Australian wildlife and Australian stories on the screen as you're growing up," he said. "At a certain age, film is not just about entertainment. It informs parts of who you are and you get to maybe understand certain parts of Australian life. I hope Kangaroo can pass on some wisdom to young audiences who go and watch it."

The movie is the launch project of Cultivator Films, the Australian production arm of StudioCanal, which turned quaint British children's book character Paddington Bear into an $800 million box office heavyweight with three hit movies since 2014.

Corr hopes it gets families together at the movies like those sweet-hearted blockbusters did.

"I grew up going to the cinema, actually sitting in front of the screen and laughing and crying and sharing that experience," he said. "It's one of the reasons I wanted to be an actor. So I hope, in our world which is a lot more small-screen focused, that this is an event that people come out for during the school holidays to share with the whole family."

Barns hopes it brings a new wave of tourism to Australia and the NT.

"You only have to say the word kangaroo to anyone anywhere in the world and they immediately think of Australia," he said. "So, I think it's going to be great promotion for Australia. We do tours at our sanctuary, mostly for international visitors, and they just love the open blue sky that stretches on forever and the red sand and the golden grass. Our landscape's very beautiful in Central Australia. It's often noted as the artist's landscape because there are so many beautiful colours. I'm really hoping people overseas want to come and visit our country. I think that's what we all want, for people to fall in love with Australia."

Corr believes the film's Aussie postcard visuals and universal themes will resonate globally: "It celebrates our landscape and our animals and our values. I think the film's got a real Australian spirit".

And screenings will end, he's tipping, "with lots of happy tears and, of course, lots of kids wanting to look after baby joeys".

Kangaroo opened in cinemas nationally on September 18.